A network may include the interconnection of multiple devices, such as personal electronic entertainment devices. In such a network, interconnected devices may share data, including the sharing of related streams of data. A transmitting device may include data that is to be streamed to multiple devices. In one example, the transmitting device may be a device containing or having access to a set of media data, such as a motion picture or other audio-visual data, that is to be streamed for display or other use by one or more display devices, with the display devices possibly including screens for display of video, speakers for production of audio, or both. For simplicity in terminology, any use of streamed data may be referred to as the “display” of such data, and the devices that utilize such data may be referred to as “display devices” or “receiving devices”.
In such a network, there may be a need to synchronize the display of data. The synchronization quality will depend on the use of such data and the sensitivity of the recipients to mismatched displays. A common scenario within this environment is the delivery of multiple media streams from a single source to multiple destinations with the requirement that their display be synchronized. If the receiving devices are displaying the media data and the displays are within viewing or hearing of each other, the synchronization may be required to be close enough that a human viewer or listener does not detect the difference in display times between the display devices.
For example, a video server may transmit a stream to an audio receiver for surround sound decoding and to a separate digital television for video display. In this case, proper lip synchronization must be maintained between the devices for proper display. A second example is the distribution of the same media stream to multiple digital televisions. In this case, the audio and video decoding for each stream may be accomplished within a single device, which would ensure proper lip synchronization for the devices, but the multiple displays must coordinate with each other to ensure that all streams are synchronized together.
However, synchronization generally requires relatively close coordination and communication between devices. This synchronization process may require significant overhead in messaging and processing. A limited network, such as a network that interconnects low-resource devices, including personal entertainment devices, may have difficulty to providing such inter-device coordination and communication.